Recruitment
by HorcruxesandHallows
Summary: The Death Eaters finally catch up with Greyback. M for violence.


"Fluffy,

Ain't sure if you'll get this, cause you never stay in the same place for long, but I reckon you'd come looking for me here eventually.

It ain't safe anymore, not even for you. You being you, they'll either recruit you or kill you, so watch your back, mate.

I can't say much cause they'll read this before it goes. Bit of bad luck really, but I'm in Azkaban for a while. Look after yourself.

Saiph."

Even now, after years had passed, Fenrir could still remember the pieces of paper fluttering to the ground after he had torn the letter apart, like snowflakes in winter or the unruly ashes of a dying fire. He watched them fall in silence as he contemplated where he would go from there.

The abandoned house in which he and Scabior had resided for over a month was now no longer safe. With his friend gone, Fenrir was alone, and the Death Eaters were getting closer and closer to finding him at last. How he had evaded their capture for so long now he did not know, but he was unsure how much longer he could or would continue.

Was surrender so terrible an idea? The life the Death Eaters promised seemed so much better than the life he had now. It seemed safe and secure. It seemed as though he would never be cold or hungry or lonely. It seemed that way, but then he remembered. He remembered who he was and what he was. He was Fenrir Greyback. He was a werewolf. He was nothing but a Half-Breed.

There were only two possible outcomes of succumbing to the Death Eaters. The first instance was a life of constant ridicule and humiliation. He was inferior to them and, as such, would never be allowed to forget this.

The second was death. Instant murder would be far too wonderful a thought. It would be slow and tortuous, and they would invite people to watch and laugh and cheer, and they would kill him in the most painful way imaginable.

It dawned on Fenrir, like a gradual epiphany, that there was nothing left for him. Now, here, with no family and no friends, no money and no house, no one to love and no one to love him, there was no other reason to live than simple, instinctive human survival. He would live for the basic reason that he was living. He would live when others could not. For Annie, who never had a life. For Scabior, who at present was experiencing his own little piece of Hell.

It would be a life half-lived and a life constantly on the run, but it would be life, contrary to any alternative the Death Eaters would force upon him.

The pieces of paper, which had once settled about the floor, began to slowly rock back and forth on the ground, drifting side to side as they gently swayed in the breeze. And this, Fenrir knew, was odd, because he did not recall having reopened any windows or doors after releasing Scabior's owl back into the open.

Then he heard the creak. A creak in the house, which ought to have been empty. Fenrir's first mistake was to freeze. There were at least twenty seconds in which Fenrir's panic rendered him completely paralytic and he ought to have taken action. His second mistake was to run. Had he known that there was only the two men present, perhaps he would have stayed and fought. He would not have been caught with his back to them as he tried, and failed, to open the front door. He would not have been stunned. He might have escaped.

Fenrir's first thought when he heard the sharp clicking of heels echoing through the small room in which he was held, and the locks on the door (for there must have at least been three) sliding into place, was of the time. Upon his capture, he was sure it had been around six o'clock in the evening, but there in that room there was no way of knowing how long he had been in their possession. There had been some time that he had been unconscious, and then there had been what felt like hours in which the four men that had accompanied him had had to wait, and in that time had took it upon themselves to help loosen Fenrir's jaw for when, of course, the time came for him to be questioned.

It was therefore the case that Fenrir's face was now barely distinguishable, so black and blue was it now from the beating it had received in the previous half hour. He could barely see the woman, who lowered herself to his level to get a good look at him, but his eyes soon adjusted and soon they were pricked with tears as she cupped his face in her hands and her nails sunk into his already tender flesh and began to draw blood.

Her voice was soft and smooth and cold. "I see you boys have been having fun without me," she said with a sharp tut of her teeth. "How disappointing."

Fenrir blinked, and any moisture in his eyes disappeared. The woman before him had dark red hair, with dark red lips to match. She was much older than him; but, though her face looked tired, her eyes burned with energy. She was imagining. She was already envisaging what she would do to him here, and she was eager to begin.

She slapped his face before sitting on the chair she had pulled in front of him. "Wake up," she said. "Wake up. I need you awake, Fenrir. I need you to listen."

It was true that his eyes had been drooping, but mostly now the swelling made it too difficult to see through them anyway. Fenrir said nothing.

"You have come to the attention of the Death Eaters, Fenrir, because you are a Half-Breed. Do you deny this?"

Fenrir said nothing, but wondered if her hair, which hung down her back even though it was tied up in a ponytail, was real.

"We want you to join us," she said, and she grinned as she said it, and she seemed so delighted by the prospect.

Again there was nothing but silence from Fenrir, who concluded that this woman was just another deluded, brainwashed follower of You-Know-Who, who seemed rejected by the idea that Fenrir was not as excited as she at the prospect of signing his very own death warrant.

The woman sighed and slowly slipped her wand from her jacket pocket. She twirled it through her fingers, and sat in silent thought.

"I remember when you first became a Half-Breed," said she absently, lost in her very own world of thought. "We were all very interested by the idea of werewolves and Death Eaters working together, until, of course, we realised that the man and the wolf were just as savage as each other. Still, there is hope for a few of you.

"You, Fenrir, for example. You're different from the rest. You could be so great. We always knew you would have potential."

Fenrir simply stared. What was there to say? His ears were ringing and he couldn't even understand half of what she was telling him.

She leaned closer, unbearably close to him, where her lips were almost pressed to his bloodied cheek.

"I chose you," she whispered. "I told him to find you."

His brow furrowed as he absorbed her words but still he said nothing. This woman, whoever she was, was more than just an empty, insane follower. Was he to believe that she was the reason for all of this? Was he to believe that it was she who had caused his lycanthropy?

She smiled, and the edges of her pure white teeth dragged along Fenrir's cheek and scraped at the congealing blood.

"Did you think it was an accident?" He could hear the amusement in her voice as she spoke. Her wand pressed into his thigh and he gasped at the searing pain, for it felt as though a hot rod of iron was burning away his flesh.

"Did you think that all this had been by chance?" She tugged at his cheek with her teeth, pulling on the skin. "Poor mummy and poor little Annie."

At those whispered words, Fenrir's body went into shock. It was as though he had been electrocuted. What she was saying was nothing but lies. She wanted a reaction. She wanted his pain and his anger. She wanted him to plead for mercy and beg to be allowed to join the Death Eaters.

"Poor, little baby sister Annie." She said each word so slowly, emphasising each syllable, and her teeth drew blood where they sunk into his neck, and her wand melted the skin from his bones, but Fenrir was disabled. He could not move and he could not speak. The pain made his body shudder but he would not give her the satisfaction of crying out.

"You were supposed to be hurt and vulnerable," she said miserably, before taking one long drag of her tongue up his cheek. "You were supposed to find solace in us, but no. You listened to your friend. You let him tell you not to join us, and now look!" She pulled back and threw her arms up into the air and shook her head. Her voice became shrill and high-pitched and what she told him clearly agitated her greatly. "Scabior rots in Azkaban and who knows what will happen to him. And you? You are right here, where you never wanted to be. You are minutes away from begging to be initiated into our family."

Through Fenrir's swollen eyes, it looked as though the woman's lipstick had smeared from her mouth and across her cheeks. On closer inspection, however, one might realise that it was in fact Fenrir's blood which coated the woman's face, and he wondered what exactly she was. Was she human?

"I want to give you a chance," she said softly. "Here it is, Fenrir Greyback. Join us. Join us and you will never want for anything. Imagine it. You'll never be hungry or cold again. You'll have your own home, with banquets every night. You'll have women desperate to be with you, and all the money you could ever need. You'll be happy, happier than you've ever been you're entire life."

She paused and waited, and still Fenrir said nothing. She sighed and waited, and still Fenrir said nothing. Did she honestly think he was stupid? Did she want him to submit so desperately that she was willing to beg him for the pathetic result of him begging her back?

She grew tired of waiting, her wand already poised to make the first move, when Fenrir uttered the first and only words he would ever utter to her: "Fuck you."

In the darkened room, through bloodshot, swollen eyes, Fenrir could not mistake the furious anger that flashed in her eyes, nor the red spark that flew from her wand and knocked him out of his chair and to the floor.

He lay convulsing in a shuddering heap as the pain crippled his body. It felt as though every bone was being crushed, and every muscle was twitching with painful spasms, and every nail was being ripped from his fingers one by one, and hot knives were sinking into his body, and a fire was melting the flesh from his bones. It felt as though his body was screaming, but his mouth refused to make any noise. His teeth were clamped together, unable to part; his body fell still and lifeless, and he wished death would be that easy; and slowly, slowly, his mind slipped into insanity.

Until, finally, it stopped. Everything stopped. He could not see or hear or speak or breathe or move, and he wished, more than anything, that death would take him before he was forced to endure the curse again.

There was little that Fenrir could remember in those few moments, and later would wonder how much had been real and how much he had imagined in his half-conscious state, but then there came his reawakening. In which Fenrir opened his eyes, and from them he saw the woman, and in her hand he saw her wand. His ears were slowly adjusting back to the way they once were, and he listened to her laughter, so strong and triumphant, and he knew that she thought she had won.

Her laughter was cruel, and felt like a new kind of torture. She was crouched before him, poking him with her wand as she spat her poisonous words at him, and all those around just stood and watched and did nothing, and every touch of her wand singed Fenrir's skin and left him with raging sores. It was not only his pathetic state which was the cause of her great amusement, but also the pain she had caused him: the deaths of his family that she had initiated.

It was the only word he heard, but it was the only one that mattered: "Annie." Annie, who had never done any harm to anyone. Annie, who was completely innocent. Annie, who was brutally murdered. Annie, who wept like a baby and begged for her life. Annie, who tried to run when they came for her. Annie, who screamed as she burned to the ground inside of her own home, with her mother already dead beside her.

The woman seemed so very excited by the story she told Fenrir. He was no longer listening. Her words pained him more than any curse she could inflict upon him. More than the wounds she was administering with her wand, and much more than the heavy kicks to his face and stomach that he was receiving from her.

It was her words, and not the burning point of her wand, that caused the dramatic rise in his temperature. It was her words, and not the threat the Cruciatus Curse again, that made him start to convulse. Her words, and not the kicks, that made him whine like a dog in pain.

The woman found pleasure in hearing Fenrir whine in such a way. Such pleasure that she ignored his growls as she continued to kick him, and her arm pulled back in anticipation of the Curse that she intended to use. Her face was frozen into a twisted smile. His claws scraped at the wooden floorboards. Her lips parted to utter the curse. She lifted her leg for one last kick, and, only a moment after it had connected with Fenrir's abdomen for the last time, it was torn from her body.

It happened too quickly for anyone to do anything, nor even realise what was happening before it was too late. Even then, when the woman's body had succumbed to the shock and fallen dead to the floor, those present in the room in possession of wands could do nothing but stare. Was it even possible? Could a man, so exhausted previously from a heavy beating, suddenly become possessed with such adrenaline that he was able to rip a limb from a healthy human body in one move?

The blood pooled from her body and soaked the sleeves of Fenrir's torn shirt. Still four men watched in horror, unable to move, until one, at last, thought to stun him. But whatever magic was present in Fenrir's body, it was enough to block the spell.

The woman's wand lay not far from her cold hand, and Fenrir took it. He was too quick for any of them, disarming them before they could react, and each of them ran to the door and scrambled to unlock it, as each was picked, one by one, from the screaming stampede of men clawing at the door.

The Killing Curse was too good for any of them, for all of them had tortured and all of them had murdered, and he could see the evil hiding behind the fear in their eyes as he ripped out their throats and broke their necks and clawed at their bodies as they tried to run from him.

Outside, in the darkening silence of twilight, the sounds of cries cut through the air. Only the birds and the trees were present to hear, but then, as the screams faded away, there could be heard the howl of a werewolf.

And this was most unusual, because the full moon was not for another six days.

_**For Pearl.**_


End file.
